Weaving
by KatSumeragi1313
Summary: I Spent Three Months in Hell with My Childhood Sweetheart and All I Got Was This Lousy Chin Scar": Imprisonment leads less to freedom and more to heartache 8027


Aside from the occasional rainfall of cement dust that fell from a crack that split the cellar room in half, Yamamoto concluded in his first five conscious hours that the ceiling was very boring. He already half-marveled at the brown clouds left by water stains and the patches of grime for long enough. He had a VIP view of the Sistine Chapel of filth, painted to honor some god, some backhandedly benevolent god who speaks to him: "We appreciate your sacrifice, but it is not good enough. You may live to watch the suffering around you. Learn from their sacrifices."

But, if he didn't spend his recovery staring into Dirt Heaven then he had to find something else to get lost in. And his mind didn't seem to want to pry open at the moment.

It's day five and Tsuna's chapped heels roll on the cold cement to his corner. They only have one cot, rusted, and he's pretty sure the mattress is older than both of them combined. Tsuna refused to sleep or weep on it. Since Yamamoto's broken body was withering away to nothing anyway, Tsuna will comfortably fit in due time.

He's also learned to stop asking questions about anything. Especially not about where Tsuna spends six hours of his life everyday. Especially not if he could use a dislocated shoulder to cry on.

It's day six and Yamamoto remembers how he crumbled so quickly and how he became confined to a filth box.

"Oh but boss, I think the Vongola might be too much of a pretty boy to die just yet," the boss's goon said, his nails digging so deeply into the sides of Tsuna's face that the skin might have broken, and Yamamoto wanted to scream.

His eyes were as wide as they could get. He was twenty-two, still so new to his leader position, still not as courageous as he could be in the face of death. Still not the best decision maker where policy is concerned but he tried his best.

But of course, the boss of the Aragosta Family wasn't as forgiving as he watched his henchmen prepare to tear Tsuna's face off. He was a great deal older, most likely in his late forties, and was familiar with the kind of naïve mistakes like the one Tsuna made. But he didn't care. He said it was unforgivable. He said he wanted to make Tsuna pay for such a stupid move.

But Yamamoto, the faithful and trustworthy Yamamoto offered himself in exchange. He said they could beat him, break him, kill him, as long as they didn't lay a finger on Tsuna. Which didn't sound like a bad deal to the dozen or so opposing mafioso in the room, seeing as his early sword prowess and morale boosting was apparently well-known.

So this goon, who Yamamoto guessed was his right hand man, gladly took up the offer. He said it would be a new learning experience for him to break someone so cherished by all.

This was also a learning experience for Yamamoto, who didn't know that brass knuckles could be made out of more than just brass and could have more exciting accessories like spikes.

And, as many times as he's gotten a little cut up, Yamamoto now learned what it felt like to have four inches of steel enter his body cavity, and at least the wall of his stomach. The blood didn't spray out initially, but a strong kick to his abdomen made him gush like a lawn sprinkler system.

Everything started to blur, and he felt like a sellout for already getting to this point with consent. A few of the mafia members that surrounded them were stepping forward, or maybe he was just having difficulties with his depth perception as he was repeatedly getting the air kicked out of him. Rusted metal starts shimmering under the shabby basement lights, and he couldn't focus too clearly on them. Oh, is that a pole, or is that a knife? It's silver, so it didn't matter because he was fucked sideways either way. It made contact with his leg and as soon as it connected he realized it's a pole, because a blade can't shatter you as badly as that just did. You would be sliced. You would feel the cold air touching your exposed flesh. It would include a little more dizziness and a little less of you screaming like there is no tomorrow.

And Yamamoto decided, in his screaming from the bottom of his lungs, that whoever was holding the iron rod would be an amazing batter. It seemed idiotic to think about baseball at a time like this, even he admitted it, but it was probably the determination that he had to break every appendage of his body. He just kept _whacking_ and his bones keep fracturing into shards and his blood becomes tainted by marrow. And he knew very well what it's like to break a bone.

He was in so much shock and on the verge of passing out but he can make out a huddled mess in front of his smashed body. Tsuna's eyes were dripping like faucets but he knew that this is for the best. Tsuna could make it out alive. Tsuna would still have a right hand man to go back to, because it certainly wasn't him.

After a half dozen men beating him into the grave, it might just be the blood caked in his ears that made him think he just heard screaming. No, it must be real. He thought Tsuna pierced through the sound barrier with what he makes out as a plea. A plea to take him instead, to do anything they wanted with his body, and they can break every bone within him.

And Yamamoto made out a "But it won't be as effective that way" from the Aragosta leader.

"_But you're killing him!_" he heard, perfectly, and his puffy eyelids covered too much of his corneas to make out the winces on every henchman's face from the sound bouncing off the walls, or the smirk on the boss's face from this twisted honors system.

Then he heard something with the cadence of "I think we can work something out," then lost enough blood to make the room go black.

Moments later he woke up, his entire body cast in bandages and laid out like a cadaver, in their holding cell and found that he wasn't able to move and guessed he wouldn't for the next fifty days or so.

The cell's door opened and rough hands shoved Tsuna inside, whose suit jacket was gone and his pants hung loosely on his hips. He stayed on the ground he was pushed to and cried into a hand covered in small cuts.

Yamamoto couldn't, and still can't, see his face so he called his name and asked if he needed something from him. He refused to respond.

It's day seven and Tsuna is experiencing the joys of fatherhood while Yamamoto is reliving his infancy.

Tsuna might not speak anymore, but the two of them have some form of interaction through a dinner ritual. A guard brings them two bowls of rice, most of which gets spilled on the floor or covered in flies, and things that seem to be odd leftovers like half-eaten packages of sardines or ketchup packets. Tsuna gulps down his share of rice with a wild hunger, then picks up Yamamoto's bowl after retrieving every sticky grain and keels by his head. He scoops bites into his delicate fingers and rolls them into perfect balls to plop into an eager swordsman's mouth, along with the random draw of condiments.

Even if it's that he refuses to speak, Yamamoto will chatter and laugh enough for the both of them. Today, as he counts rice ball number nine scrape past his teeth, he says "It seems like a lot less of it is spoiled this time!"

He can't tell if he's being ignored or if the words just aren't getting through. He hears a soft cracking noise, what he assumes to be the breaking of a hardboiled egg's shell. Tsuna readies a piece for him but he refuses. "I know I can't see you, but please take it for yourself. We both need the energy, okay?" He's used to silence in response, as much as Tsuna is used to losing arguments based on generosity, and the smaller man slowly munches on the egg. He gives a piece to Yamamoto anyway, the flat, dimpled bottom side, and the rain guardian begrudgingly takes it. He knows that hardboiled eggs don't come pre-salted, but asking Tsuna why he's crying will end the same as every other time.

A prison cell might not be the best place for a scientific experiment, but Yamamoto's body seems bent on finding out exactly how long he can survive without sleep. Tsuna is unconsciously helping with the experiment also.

It's day sixteen and Yamamoto jokes about digging a tunnel to Japan.

"Those rice bowls they give us, when they drop on the ground the sounds they give off make them appear kind of sturdy. As soon as I have at least one working arm we can eat our last meal and get to the underground base in no time!"

In the back of his mind, he's not really kidding. He understands that if the rest of the family rushed the Aragosta immediately it would be a Vongola slaughter. Digging was viable. They'd notice quickly they were gone, but it didn't seem like the worst idea.

At this point he would even settle for Tsuna saying "That has to be the most idiotic thing I've heard of."

Yamamoto isn't sure that Tsuna doesn't know how much it hurts to not hear him speak. Then again, he's used to keeping his feelings hidden.

It's day twenty-seven and Yamamoto, who is now able to wiggle a few toes and fingers without much pain, is struggling to hide the truth from himself for much longer.

He can only tilt his head a little from side to side and up to down, and today he is able to watch Tsuna walk through the basement door and to his usual corner without the shoving of a guard's hands. He is slowly becoming some obedient shell of what he once was and it scares the life out of him.

Tsuna doesn't sit anymore, he just lies down. Sometimes he'll forget that normal instincts don't work in a world where everything has been taken away from him, and he winces in pain and removes the pressure from his bottom. There's only one kind of repentance Yamamoto can imagine that would only cause _that_ physical pain, but he doesn't want to think of Tsuna being touched in that way. He likes to think that not everything has been taken away from him.

Although, he really did like moving his arms. That was useful.

Part of him wishes he still wasn't able to see Tsuna, because with his stained dress shirt and pants on he looks uninjured except for the constant red in his eyes. But that's the problem: if his injuries are so poorly hidden, so is his agony. Yamamoto doesn't know how to kick the doors open and just tell him to let him inside is heart and tell him everything that aches. He won't really be able to fix it, but he'll do all he can.

It's day twenty-nine and Tsuna speaks for the first time since they arrived in their hellhole sweet hellhole.

Yamamoto makes a point to say something encouraging each day, a "we'll make it out of here just fine" or "it's only taking a while because our friends are finding the best strategy." But today he tilts his head over to a Tsuna he can see now for some rice and says "We can't lose hope now when everyone is still trying to rescue us."

And the battered Tsuna drops the rice ball back into the bowl and scoffs.

"There's no fucking point anymore. This cell is our grave. We're going to rot here forever."

If he wasn't so constricted by pain he'd hold him and drive all of the pains and demons out of his body. In Yamamoto's mind they've taken Tsuna away from him. He swears when he can move a few more body parts he'll find a way to put his soul back in his body, wherever those bastards that take him everyday put it.

It's day thirty-four, and in his sleeplessness, Yamamoto remembers how he fell in love.

Or, in addition, Yamamoto remembers the first time he entertained the idea that he batted for the other team, and that didn't mean Namimori.

Even he admits that he was probably the biggest dumbass of a teenager to walk the planet in the past. For example it never connected in his brain why during middle school he was often caught staring into space in the showers after baseball. It wasn't usually space, it was a well-exercised abdomen or a firm ass, or somewhere a little less subtle. And somehow this never usually interfered with his usual trains of thought about girls whose posters pulled out of sports magazines.

One night, when he was sure his father turned in from dicing up fatty tuna for the night, he haphazardly laid across his bed and pulled his flesh to the thought of girls in tight bikinis, but his subconscious helped him take a turn for the stranger. He thought about the kid who was a good third baseman, and how after turning his shower off he turned around to face a fully-exposed stomach and nether region. But he didn't stop touching himself. It felt just as good—maybe even better—then his earlier fantasies. His mouth coiled into a smile of pleasure as he closed his eyes and dreamed of toned muscle and beads of soap and water that called attention to such a well-sized member.

Then his thoughts turned to another boy, and his hand stopped mid-jerk because the sensation that went to his cock was _not_ supposed to feel that good when thinking about someone so close to you. For a brief moment the eye candy left his brain and he thought of someone else, that someone being one of his best friends Sawada Tsunayoshi, not doing anything particularly erotic, just standing.

Maybe it was just some random image that popped up, he thought. Just a slip. Nothing real. So he continued and after more visions of tight asses danced in his head Tsuna resurfaced, and he decided not to stop. He told himself he would work through the abnormality. Yamamoto kept making long, hard pulls at himself and as much as he didn't want to be, was fixated on the boy standing in his mind, the way his hair reminded him of bittersweet chocolate, and his eyes reminded him of sunflowers, the ways he shook his head nervously and fought with so much passion. This wasn't supposed to make him feel better. Those thoughts weren't supposed to make his heart _and_ his cock swell with pleasure. He came, with such erratic jerks and nervous eyes. Yamamoto stared at the ceiling and felt lumps gather in his throat. He didn't bother to clean the mess off his hand and chest yet. He had to make sure this didn't happen again.

He remembers going into high school and being in the same class with his friends again, and how his masturbation habits never changed. He'd never think a lewd thought; in his mind Tsuna would never strip or taunt him. He'd dream about how soft his skin must feel, how his hands would weave so tightly into his, how tender his kisses would be and soft moans would melt against his own.

Yamamoto decided that if this was about more than just physical attraction that it might be more than just a crush. This might have been his thickest observation yet.

Something his thick skull couldn't even figure out was the definition of taboo.

He learned the word in a magazine he snuck out of his house at night to buy at a convenience store, to which the clerk rolled her eyes at the cover story "How to Get Him to Feel Your Thunder Down Under." After appreciating some of the more "visual" stories in his bed he flipped the pages to more serious articles, about how relationships between men are still considered taboo and should be handled discretely. The concept of being discrete was also something the baseball moron was still not able to understand.

They're both sixteen, and he wrote a note in his sloppy handwriting on a paper wrapper used for the school's melon bread telling him to meet him after school. And when he arrived at their meeting place Tsuna was leaning against the school building, watching clouds float by, and Yamamoto forgot every word he had planned.

In his head, he imagined him saying "Tsuna, I don't know how to put this, but I like you. A lot. More than two friends, erm, guy friends should like each other. But I think you're so beautiful, and sweet, and perfect and I'll never let you go." And to this Tsuna would react with his nerves, but would express his joy and would return his love.

In real life, Yamamoto was the one who acted with his nerves. He rested both of his hands on the smaller boy's shoulders and kissed him with a hunger he hadn't been able to shake off for months. He savored the taste and the warmth of his small pink lips. It was everything he hoped for during the nights he spent sprawled on his futon calling his name.

Except seconds later he realized Tsuna wasn't kissing back. He pulled away and read only shock and disgust on Tsuna's face. He lifted his hands off of his shoulders and ran as far as his tired legs and broken heart could take him.

The kiss was something they never talked about again. Life went on, Tsuna kept the distance friends would normally keep from him, and Yamamoto still became one of his most trusted guardians.

However, Yamamoto was always the masochistic type. He vowed to himself to keep the same distance, but his body was becoming more aware of what he really wanted and he thought more of sex. He dreamed of skin touching, hurried hands, syncopated heaving and he knew it was just so _wrong_, so putrid but the thought of Tsuna's body united with his was the most beautiful thing he could ever think of.

Actually, the now older, wiser, and more injured Yamamoto thinks, it might still be.

That night, Tsuna is awake and draws spirals in the ground with his index finger. Yamamoto whispers his name in his sleep, and it makes his eyes water because in his mind it's a matter of worth.

Today's special is slop rice accompanied by something Tsuna won't let him see. Instead of crawling to Yamamoto on the mattress he stays in his corner and keeps his back to his face. His hands are working quickly, and when a small pile of rice drops to the floor Tsuna turns his head and Yamamoto sees this glow he's forgotten about for all these days.

Tsuna stops working, uses the wall as a crutch to stand, and stares at the bowl in his muck-encrusted hands like it holds such a perfect creation. Yamamoto can't stop himself from staring at his legs, these kneecaps like ball-joints of an abused little doll.

Something Yamamoto couldn't see in the distance was that through the radiance in his face Tsuna was still crying, and continued to sob as he sat on the smallest edge of their cot. "You don't remember what today is, do you?" he asks shakily.

Yamamoto thinks back. "I haven't kept track of the date the whole time we've been here."

The ceramic of the rice bowl looks so daunting in his hands. He uses a wrist to wipe tears mixed with dust from his cheek. "You're twenty-three today, Yamamoto."

Today's dinner is slop rice and the last seaweed wrappers from a package, hand-rolled by the chef to your liking.

It's day thirty-nine and Yamamoto remembers how it feels to be in love.

It's not that he's being wheeled into nothingness on the hospital bed, but the combination of a blindfold and an all-carbohydrate and condiment diet have completely screwed his sense of direction. Yamamoto hears the whirrs of an x-ray machine and fast strokes of a pen on a clipboard, and a few of his muscles are free from casts and gauze. The doctor, or whoever is on the other side of the thick cloth, says his body was initially not as badly beaten as he thought, and the healing process will be very quick.

He also adds, and Yamamoto can hear the malice, that he should be so grateful his boss is sacrificing himself so that he can be in such good care.

It's day fifty, and as Yamamoto is given more of himself back, more of Tsuna is taken away.

Pseudo-doctor leaves him with a sling on his left arm and a few layers of gauze near his stomach, and tells him to stay off his feet. He can now sit up and perform any necessary functions with his right hand. If he could sense where the doctor was, he'd count strangling as something necessary.

The guardian is wheeled back to his cell from his afternoon appointment, where he is flipped carelessly back onto his cot. His blindfold is torn from his head and he finds himself facing the curled up Tsuna. He sits up, a feeling that brings dizziness at first but becomes as natural as breathing. Tsuna responds with shock.

"Now that I'm almost healed from the waist up, you can sleep up here so you're not hurting yourself on the cement," and pastes a warm, inviting smile on his face. Tsuna nods his head back and forth. "Have I done something to upset you?"

"Yes, but if anything it's not your fault."

Yamamoto realizes that even a roundabout immediate answer is still progress.

"Will you tell me what I haven't done to you?"

"You haven't treated me like the screw-up that I am," he says with astonishment and sorrow. "Look at what I've done to you. You…you were beaten down so badly and all I could do was sit at your side and do nothing, and the only reason we're here is because of some stupid mistake I made, and—"

"But I'm not angry at you."

"Maybe you should start trying to be," and buries his head into crossed arms that rest on his bruised kneecaps.

So Yamamoto tries to make progress on something else.

"Whenever you're ready to talk about what's happening to you, I'll always be here for you."

"Of course you will. It's not like you can walk away."

"I'm know I'm not the kindest of us in this room, but I don't think I'm exactly wrong in calling this _fucking bullshit_," the storm guardian said, a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips, while reclining on the flamboyant sofa in the meeting parlor.

It's day fifty-three and Yamamoto, who is taking baby steps to learn how to use his hand again, remembers the day when the Lobsters hated the Clams the most.

"Duly noted," Ryohei said, less than amused, while fidgeting with the bandage on the bridge of his nose. "Who let you smoke in here? It's like this every day with you. I tell you I need clean air for my personal fitness; you give me the finger and keep smoking. What an extreme _asshole_, Gokudera."

"You know what, Lawn Head? No one gives a shit about your health plans. Make it easier and die quicker by punching a volcano. Tenth, what are your thoughts on the proposition?"

Tsuna stood by the window and looked as though he was ready to jump out. "It's like we're in middle school again," he muttered and used the small amount of confidence in his body to set his men in place. "This isn't the first time an Aragosta representative came to us wanting some protection from the Granchio Family, is it not?"

"It's a fuckin' game of monkey in the middle that we don't need to get involved with. Let them die, Tenth. They don't deserve our reinforcements," Gokudera harshly replied.

"But they haven't exactly done anything wrong to us, have they?" Yamamoto asked. He sat backwards on a chair upholstered with roses and twirled his sword like a drill into the carpet.

"But all they've offered us in return is a measly sum of money and some property. It might not be the best deal for us," Ryohei reported.

"But we also know Tsuna isn't the kind of guy who cares about money or something in return," Yamamoto says slyly and turns to the man near the window who has broken into a cold sweat.

Tsuna sighed. "I think I need you guys to leave before my head explodes." The storm and sun guardians gave their boss a sour look and got up from the gaudy Italian furniture. Yamamoto understood that there was a target audience for the exiting invitation and kept his place while Tsuna began to slam his head into the porcelain coffee table.

"They really do like to get to the point, don't they?" Yamamoto chuckled.

"Put it this way, if Mukuro decided not to play hooky from another meeting I probably would be making a dent in that Ferrari downstairs." He took a seat opposite from Yamamoto and began to laugh at his own demise. This has become a recent habit of Tsuna's to push out most of his guardians and leave the everlasting calm one in the room. It gave his mind solace from any arguments and/or explosions in the previous meetings. And Yamamoto couldn't necessarily complain about staring at Tsuna for an extra half-hour. "So what do you think I should do, Yamamoto?"

"I think you should do whatever your gut tells you to do."

"I have a very uncooperative gut in case you don't remember," he said while glancing nervously at his shoes. "It's still kind of hard to make decisions this large. I don't think four shaky years is enough time for anyone to make a good one really."

Yamamoto reached across to Tsuna' legs and placed a firm hand on top of his knee. "Whatever decision you make, we'll always support you one-hundred percent." Tsuna began shifting nervously under his palm and Yamamoto, like usual, laughed it off.

"I feel like, because I want to help other families in need, I'm letting more stand-up people like Gokudera and Sasagawa down. Maybe I should learn to be more assertive and refuse the offer."

"I don't really think it's something you would do, but if that's your final plan, I'm not one to put my opinions in." Tsuna didn't appreciate that, but smiled anyway.

"I think I'll have a more thought-out decision by tomorrow morning. Maybe we should just go downstairs before Gokudera gets jealous that we're discussing strategies without him?" Both men laughed and left the garish parlor of the Italian headquarters.

The next day, Tsuna made the more "stand-up" decision for his more "stand-up" men.

On the same day, over ninety-percent of the Aragosta's forces were completely wiped out.

Three days later, Tsuna and Yamamoto were reported missing after being picked up by a Vongola-owned protected limousine.

Fifty-three days later, nothing is quite like the present.

Tsuna, no longer needing the extra push or shove from a guard, walks in the room today with a cut across is face and Yamamoto inherits his father's instincts and reaches out to him. His arm is still slung but his legs have gotten their strength back. Tsuna stares blankly at the taller man who tears at part of the bandage covering the openings in his chest, _oh how selfless the Rain Guardian is, how kind and always faithful_ and bites through the medical tape to attach it to his pale skin.

But instead Tsuna bats his hand away and the makeshift band-aid falls onto the floor. Yamamoto tries to seem unfazed and picks it back up again.

"Ah, now it's going to be dirty. We don't want you to get an infection, do we?" he asks calmly and Tsuna knows there is no _we_. Yamamoto wants him patched up and smiling again while he wants his skin to catch that discoloration and rot off his deserving body. So as the swordsman prepares to attach it again, Tsuna uses his remaining strength to push him back like a vengeful child. Yamamoto feels the force of two calloused palms pushing into his stomach and is taken back a few steps, almost tripping over the bed frame.

If this was a routine training mission or the morning after of a large operation, Tsuna would never push him back. The real Tsuna would be scratching his head, telling him or Gokudera to concentrate on their own scrapes and not his.

Then again, since he knows how it feels to be pushed back by Tsuna, this might just be the real deal and not the broken down and damaged remains of the boy he's held closest in his heart.

It's day sixty-two and Yamamoto renews his membership to the Lonely Hearts Club.

"Tell me why you don't want to be helped, Tsuna."

"Maybe if I died I'd be able to get out of this hellhole quicker."

"Please don't say things like that," and he realizes that he might have been too quick to judge the longevity of his legs, since his kneecaps feel close to shattering and his calves feel disjointed.

"Why do you care so much? Worry about your own problems."

"It's my duty to ensure your safety."

Tsuna gives him an annoyed glance. "It's your duty to ensure things go the way I want them to go. And if I want to die quickly I don't need your fucking input." He turns his back on the crushed Yamamoto and huddles in his corner.

"I can't let you do that."

"No one cares what you want," he replies childishly.

"You're not yourself anymore."

"Oh, yes, because you know everything about my identity in that thick skull of yours." If he wasn't so distraught, Yamamoto would applaud Gokudera on his good lessons in insults.

"Just take care of yourself, Tsuna."

"Give me a good reason."

"Because I want you, Tsuna" he says deeply, and he feels so vulnerable on his rickety appendages that shake in the bellow of his proclamation. He realizes "want" probably isn't the correct verb. Most likely "need." Ultimately, "love."

And Tsuna laughs in his face. It's less of a laugh and more of the beginning of a hysterical sob. "You don't want me," he sneers. "Not like this. Not anymore."

So Yamamoto decides to set things a little straight. "I love you."

"I know you do," he says with such venom. He's avoiding eye contact, his lids filling with tears and his mouth curved sickly upward. "You never got better at hiding your emotions. I know you love me and it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

And these words, sting, they make Yamamoto's throat clam up and his fingers lose their feeling and he loses the will to breathe.

"Do you know what they take me upstairs to do every day?"

Sadly, he thinks he has a hunch.

It's day sixty-two and he feel so healed but so fractured at the same time.

"They blindfold me. Then strip me and push me on the floor. They kick me around for a few minutes until they get bored. Tie my hands together so tightly, I'm surprised the rope doesn't break my skin. And," he pauses, the rest of his tears flowing down bruised and cut-up cheeks while he tries to laugh off the pain.

"They fuck me. For hours, I'm not sure how anyone could have that much stamina to do that. That boss, he said I only had to give my body to him, but then he said it was unfair for his men to just sit there and watch. So they join in, and every day it's the same. They bend me over and backwards, and force me on my knees or against someone's lap, and just wait for me to break."

Yamamoto says nothing, but stares ahead at the young man sobbing into his tattered long sleeves.

"I guess they did a good job with breaking me. I can't remember the last time I had hope left."

The silent man wouldn't dare agree.

"Every day…if you could see what the do to me, how they fuck me and fill me and scar me, you wouldn't want me anymore." Tsuna loses himself in his cries, and for minutes, seemingly hours, the room remains quiet save for the boss's hitched breaths and sniffs filled with salt.

"If you knew how disgusting they made me, if you knew how it feels to be this filthy, you would stop loving me."

Yamamoto, who has been standing through each second of Tsuna's nerves unwinding, makes sure his legs won't give in and crumble to the ground like towers and walks to the frail man's corner to sit by his side. He wraps his able arm around his small shaking body. Tsuna buries his face inside the side of his chest, and feels his tears soak through the gauze and touch his patched-up skin.

"I think," Yamamoto says in a voice so soothing and kind to Tsuna's ears, "no matter how badly someone will try to hurt you, you're always going to be the Tsuna I love. That same Tsuna that saved me from falling off a school rooftop, and is such a strong yet sweet person with more passion and mercy and love than I can bear."

He feels more tears trail down his body and collect on his thigh but continues. "And I really hate what they've turned you into, this broken little boy who's afraid to let the people close to him help him, and they've drained all the kindness out of your heart and tore out your soul. And I want to do my best to heal all those wounds."

Tsuna can't look up from the soggy bandages, but says something so quiet a droplet from a leaking faucet could overpower it. Yamamoto thinks it might be an apology. He won't accept it.

The two of them sit, nestled in each other's cold bodies, for however long it takes for Tsuna's tears to stop. It's quiet, but neither of them ever dreamt of anything more than each other's close proximity.

"You know what the funny thing is?" Tsuna asks, his voice raspy from earlier. "Well, not exactly funny, but until our capture I was a virgin."

"Tsuna, you don't have to talk about that if you don't want to."

"No, it's okay, it's just that when I think about it now, it reminds me of high school. Remember when Haru went through that phase of only taking advice from the columns of imported women's magazines?"

Yamamoto smiles and lets out a light hah. "How could I forget those long after-school lectures she gave us on communication and dating?"

"I remember her telling me and Gokudera one day, on the way home from school, that the first time has to be special, with someone you love, when both of you are ready. Gokudera kept threatening to bomb her even if she was a girl for telling us that, but I guess I did need to hear it. The whole time I was leading the Vongola, I never thought about sex 'cause I was so caught up in protecting everyone that I forgot to find someone who would protect me in return." Yamamoto's hand slithered up Tsuna's back and reaches into his hair, and his fingers, almost free of pain, comb through the auburn mess matted with sweat and substances he's rather not think about.

"But the other thing I thought about from high school was the kiss you gave me." Tsuna turns to look at Yamamoto directly for the first time in weeks. His eyes are a little red, but he manages to give the rain guardian a smirk. "I was so scared when you ran away because I wanted to tell you how much I liked it." This makes Yamamoto's fingers freeze and his eyes widen. "I liked how it tasted like seaweed and melon bread, and your hands grabbed my shoulders so it felt like I wouldn't fall back. And your lips were a lot softer than I expected, and it made my heart rush like speeding bullet trains, and part of me hoped that since you kissed me so hard and you looked so nervous, you had feelings for me. But I was always so scared to ask."

Unconfined Yamamoto would take this time to kick himself in the head as hard as he could, but the confined version frees his hand from itself from Tsuna's tangles and brushes the side of his face. "Tsuna," he whispers with the yearning pent up from years past, "Let me kiss you again. Let me kiss you with as much longing as I did the first time."

And Tsuna doesn't need to say "yes." He leans in and their lips touch, and it feels like puzzle pieces clicking into place. It feels like lightning storms, and hurricanes, and more natural disasters that Tsuna would normally run from but he wants their lips to stay parted and their tongues to stay intertwined because chaos be damned, it still feels right.

Yamamoto couldn't stop planting kisses onto Tsuna, neither the drawn-out type nor the small peck, and he was overjoyed that it seemed to be that way in reverse also. He was shocked as Tsuna swung his legs over his hips and grasped the back of his head with both hands, with jagged dagger nails digging into his skull.

"I don't want to do this with anyone but you," Tsuna whispers into Yamamoto's mouth and that combined with Tsuna's hips rocking into his own halts his ability to think. Their faces are so flushed in affection and he's so drunk in this need for touch that he doesn't even consider why Tsuna keeps every button on what's left of his dress shirt so meticulously buttoned as his arm slips under the shirt and feels the uneven skin on his chest.

He feels Tsuna's body shudder on top of him, but not for the right reason. He looks up at the man on his lap and sees him flinching in pain and humiliation.

There's only one kind of repentance Yamamoto can imagine that would only cause _that_ physical pain along with the kind that can been sheathed by a thin layer of polyester, but he doesn't want to think of Tsuna being touched in that way.

"You don't have to touch me there if you don't want to," Tsuna says, but his words mean nothing as the stronger tears the shirt off him, and buttons fly in zigzags across the cell, making pinging noises on the cot, the walls, and the dim light fixture. Yamamoto glided his fingertips over the crevasses in his chest, the deep wounds and the scrapes and the healing burns. "S-seriously, Yamamoto, you don't have to be so kind when even I know how ugly they look."

"They're beautiful," he says back while bowing his head and making a trail of kisses up to the soft skin covering his sternum. "Such beautiful markings on such a beautiful body." His mouth enclosed over one of Tsuna's rosy nipples, making Tsuna whimper. His hand draws delicate circles around the other, and the small buds grow pert in seconds.

"Ya-yamamoto," Tsuna begs.

"Please call me by my first name, Tsuna." Yamamoto groans. Tsuna's straddling was getting a lot faster and a lot harder for him to bear.

"Takeshi," he says corrected. Yamamoto thinks he is going to be pushed over the edge from simply hearing his name from those wanton lips. "Please…inside me…"

Yamamoto pulls away. "Are you sure? I mean, if we do it here, would it feel like all the other times you've done it?"

"No, no it would never feel like that," he says and unbuttons the fly of his blood-encrusted suit pants. Tsuna unclothes Yamamoto's eager erection, already dripping wet and he smiles at the taller man. Maybe this idea of years of unrequited craving wasn't something only Yamamoto understood.

Belts and slacks altogether get tossed across the room into a disheveled heap. Tsuna inserts slender digits into himself, throwing his head back and still finding a way to look deeply into Yamamoto's eyes with such abashment in equally lewd expressions of pleasure.

Yamamoto thinks, as Tsuna lowers himself onto his cock, that one-armed sex might be difficult for both of them. But, when he glances up and gets a good enough look at Tsuna's face, he realizes sex at all with their psyches is probably not the best medicine for developing intertraumatic stress disorder. Droplets are streaming down both their faces, but they each know that the other is just so _happy_ and when they begin thrusting and moving it's so many fulfilled desires and softly-spoken dreams while alone in their rooms as boys wanting to know the warmth of each other's skin.

The swordsman's tongue writes elaborate messages under lips that pressed into the side of Tsuna's neck. His ears are ringing. Everything coming from Tsuna's is a slur of disjointed pleads and moans. They're notes to the steady beat of water dripping from the ceiling as they replicate a perverse slow dance in each other's arms.

Tsuna forces their bodies together so closely so their falling and rising chests and their working hips follow the same curvatures. They're screaming in each others ears; first names, I-love-yous, satisfactions, admirations, declarations.

"Takeshi, I can't hold on any longer, I'm gonna—"

"It's okay Tsuna, don't be afraid to." And even though they both have trembling voices and tears down their faces Yamamoto's voice gave him such strength and such warmth. His hands dig into the other's back, making more little crescent moons, and he feels this wave of ecstasy overcome him. He comes and he feels no large release; he feels paralyzed and his body is too weak to moan any louder or thrust any harder and his hips had just given up. He wants to give such a loving person in his life everything he has but is completely sapped and feels so ashamed.

But Yamamoto, so magnanimous and understanding, will love him all the same even if his energy has been used up for someone he'd never love. His arm that rests lowly on Tsuna's waist wraps tightly around him like a ravenous snake as the sky guardian's effete muscles tighten around him and he can't lean back against the freezing stone walls anymore than he already is and his skulls feels like it could crack. With his final thrust up his bones want to crack open and let his marrow ooze into his body, but they don't surrender and his essence spreads through Tsuna's body.

Tsuna's arms dangle at his sides and he leans his head on Yamamoto's chest, and feels him nuzzle the top of his head and use his right arm's strength to keep him close in the tightest embrace.

"I'm sorry I—" Tsuna starts but is immediately cut off.

"You don't need to apologize for something that isn't your fault. It's just…" Yamamoto trails off and Tsuna's looks up and anticipates his answer. He expects it to be full of disappointment, but is swiftly proven wrong. "I could feel your heartbeat when you were pressed against me, and after feeling its pulse throughout me, I've never felt any more in love with you."

To this, Tsuna's arms find new life and reach to adorn his body, beckoning him to never let go.

It's day sixty-two and _Come what may, I will love you till my dying day._

The silver-haired pyrotechnic put his hand over his eyes in disgrace as he watched his colleague, who was drunk as hell and using one of the lesser garden fountains as a kiddie pool.

It's day sixty-three, and while Tsuna is upstairs performing sex and not love, Yamamoto remembers how the best instruction can come from sake-induced blackouts.

"As if the you couldn't be more of an embarrassment to the family," Gokudera growled, "we have a drunk baseball fucker who is going to drown himself in a puddle."

This was into the staggering hours after Tsuna's Vongola inauguration ball, barely after their high school graduation and about an hour before Timoteo was bound to board a private jet to his new retirement villa. It was a lovely ceremony, with every new guardian presented and honored and every mafia branch at their best for a new boss. After the more ceremonious events there was dancing in courtyards with vivid paper lanterns, and alcohol. And, since Yamamoto couldn't find the courage to ask the one he fancied for a dance, he chose to drink.

"Were you even able to stand up tonight?"

"Ahaha, for a little while." Yamamoto was a happy person. He was an even happier drunk. "I was going to dance for a bit but there wasn't anyone without a partner. So I decided to have a few drinks and take a swim instead."

"You liar. At some points Chrome and Haru were standing around waiting for some stupid bastard like you to ask them to dance."

"I guess I couldn't see them because my vision wasn't getting any better." Gokudera wasn't that stupid, however.

"You act like no one notices how often you stare at him, you fucking moron. Everyone knows you've got a thing for the Tenth and no amount of imported liquor is going to help you hide it from yourself."

In jumbled words, Yamamoto asked "Do you think he knows?"

"The Tenth is too busy with other things to worry about someone's little crushes on him. Your secret is somehow safe for now." Gokudera reluctantly held out an arm to Yamamoto and pulled the soaking drunk out of the water. "You're going to catch a stupid ass cold if you don't change into something dry."

"Ahaha, that's if I can make it to my room without spinning in circles and falling down!"

The irritated beyond belief storm guardian drags Yamamoto by the back of his collar to his quarters in the large Italian mansion, leaving a trail of fountain water in the carpet. He left him at the foot of his bed, and when the more hammered out of the two asked to be lifted onto the bed he was met with a "Climb on it your own fucking self."

"I always had this feelin' in my gut that you like Tsuna too, Gokudera," Yamamoto said as the alcohol took more of a toll on his common sense.

"The way I admire the Tenth is a lot different than you. I like his caring nature and his leadership skills while heaven forbid what you think about."

"Oh come on Gokkuderadera, you've never thought about how good he looks or the way he must feel around—"

"I'm going to let your fucking moronic pet names slide, but I didn't think you could stoop to a new low even when intoxicated." Gokudera looked at Yamamoto, who steadily made his way onto the bed and rolled around on the comforter like an unruly seal. "Although, as much of an idiot as you are, the Tenth sees things in you that apparently no one else cares to."

"Do you really mean it?" he asked, stupefied.

"Yes, yes! Jesus, just get out of those clothes and don't do anything else stupid." Gokudera moved to the other man's dresser and began undoing his cufflinks, while looking in the mirror to make sure the drunk Yamamoto wasn't choking on his own socks or the like. Instead, he saw him wrestling with his shirt and finally lifting it off his toned body.

Gokudera, who admitted to enjoying a few glasses of wine and some champagne while avoiding his sister, remembered Shamal saying the best part about alcohol was that you could blame anything on it.

"Hey Yamamoto, if you even got your hands on the Tenth, what the hell do you think you'd even do with him?"

Yamamoto looked up from his previous task, which was making an elaborate bowtie out of his pants. "I don' think I get what you mean, Gokukudera."

In a lesson on self-restraint and how to lose it, Gokudera said "Do you know how to have sex? Or am I going to have to teach a goddamn idiot like you how to make the Tenth happy?"

Yamamoto snaps quickly back into reality as the door opens and Tsuna rushes in, avoiding eye contact. "They've been videotaping us this whole time, Takeshi." Tsuna says frigidly and moves back into his corner despite the emotional progress made the other night.

"What makes you say that?"

"I was asked 'Who fucks you better: the boss, or your little crippled boyfriend downstairs?'" He has a new bruise on his arm, just a small purple speck on his skin.

"Did you give them an answer?"

"Here's one of the similarities between us," he says and gives Yamamoto a soul-crushing smile. "I'm not very good at lying." And he gets up and falls into the other man's arms for the rest of the evening.

It's become this new routine in their lives. Tsuna leaves the cell before Yamamoto can wake up, arrives hours later, and they make love until their bodies feel like they'll fall into splinters. Lately Yamamoto's left arm is free from a sling, although it's still a bit sore, and he has been adjusting to the concept of multitasking.

He's not exactly sure why Tsuna would want to have sex to escape from sex. One day he asks and gets the reply "If it's with you, it's all that keeps me from losing my humanity."

It's day seventy-four and Yamamoto, who still drives into Tsuna and calls out his name with the same degree of love, can't tell if he's the detox or the retox.

On the same day, Tsuna hovers over the face of the other man who is lying on their bed, exhausted from Tsuna's touch. One of his fingers trails down his chin along a thin scar, where Yamamoto can remember the…innovative brass knuckle slicing off a decent layer of skin.

"This scar," Tsuna says, and he expects the sentence to end in apologies and tears.

""Is it wrong if I said it makes you look really cool? Like the natural-born hitman Reborn says you are. Even a bit…sexy."

And Yamamoto, a son of a sushi chef in the midst of action and danger, simply laughs and pulls Tsuna in for another kiss.

Tsuna clings to his body and crushes his hand between his, and they are both equally scared out of their minds. Gunshots are ringing, orders are being shouted from across hallways and up staircases, and inevitably, outside there is another mass murder of the Aragosta. This is something that the both of them knew from the depths of the basement, where not a single bullet touched them.

For the past eighty-nine days Yamamoto hasn't had any exposure to the Italian language, and it seems like that plus an overdosage of cabin fever has wiped the language completely from his mind except for "yes," "no," "fuck you and go die," and "spaghetti." Tsuna seemed just as oblivious to the noise outside.

"I'm going to check the lower level!"

It's in Japanese, and their ears perk up and they look at each other with the same realization that the voice is so familiar and they can pinpoint exactly to whom it belongs. They hear more bullets hitting the handles of doors and fixtures swinging open.

The shots' echoes are even closer. If they weren't so malnourished and exhausted they would be screaming with joy. Either way, their cell door flies free and Ryohei's frame and ghostly hair is illuminated by the Aragosta base on fire. The boxer has a relieved smile and pulls a phone from his pocket.

"Gokudera, tell Gianni to bring the helicopter around to the eastern side. I found them both and they need treatment immediately. Yes, they're both alive. Yes, Tsuna is fine. Well I'm sorry I'm bringing Yamamoto back in one piece but now's not the time for more casualties."

Ryohei snaps the phone closed and wipes the sweat off his brow. "You have no idea how hard it was to actually find this place! We couldn't just rush in, and apparently the Aragosta are notorious for using decoy bases. Do you want Gokudera to come in and give you a hand upstairs?"

Yamamoto, who stands as tall and strong as the first day of their capture, says "I can handle it. And you have no idea how much I regret not taking you up on those body conditioning lessons." Ryohei smirks and thinks to himself it's a wonder that his spirit hasn't been broken in what has been almost three months.

Again, he has no idea.

Yamamoto lifts Tsuna into his arms like Prince Charming and his ragdoll princess and follows the sun guardian out of a manor being engulfed by flames.

Gokudera, truly an apprentice of a doctor, began patching up their wounds in the helicopter and unloaded his anxiety and fears onto them. Tsuna would have panicked from guilt, but Yamamoto's steady hand on top of his kept his mind focused on other things.

It's day eighty-six and as revenge is a dish best served someone with as volatile temper as Gokudera's, which is something truly unmatched, Tsuna spends his first night back at home in Yamamoto's bed, with hands weaving together and the flutters of enervated hearts.

There is no one more punctual in the world as Gokudera Hayato. From the symmetry of his tie, the angles of his suit and the dotted I's and crossed T's of his penmanship, it was known throughout the Vongola family. Especially when time was concerned, and Yamamoto knew as he ran through the thick and verdant woodlands, that Gokudera would have his head if he was more than a nanosecond late.

It's two years from their rescue from the Aragosta, and Yamamoto has a hard time keeping his mind intact when he has lost the two most important men in his life.

The day he died is still so vivid. He arrived at the front of the base in the same escorted vehicle he left in, except he was draped in the arms of accompanying subordinates, with bullet wounds dripping with curdling blood and eyes slowly glazing. Tsuna in his last minutes saw Yamamoto stop and grasp his mouth to suppress his screams, and tried to smile at him to comfort his soul, but his teeth were stained with red and he found himself close to tears also.

It took hours for the other guardians to pry Tsuna's dead body from his arms, as he smothered him in kisses and salty drops and the delirium that grew in his heart after seeing his beloved slaughtered, and the most selfish phrase in the Yamamoto Takeshi dictionary: _you told me you wouldn't leave me_.

He watched his comrades take the body inside to arrange for a proper burial and a well-sized casket as he sat in the middle of the driveway under a bleeding sunset, torn apart. He realizes Tsuna knew this was going to happen. Tsuna wouldn't give him the afternoon off without a good reason. Tsuna wouldn't have dug his hands so deeply into locks of raven hair and wouldn't have been so silent as he melted into Yamamoto as one for the last time. For this, he'll never forgive him.

Today he's gripping a bouquet full of calla lilies for their usual mourning, and is eager to talk to the slab of granite that is his closest connection to his boss. He wants to talk about the weather and the hard work they're doing to protect his family, even if he can't be thanked back.

However, he reaches a halfway point to Tsuna's coffin and hears the gears of a Strau Mosca churning through the trees, and behind bushes sees sets of wild eyes. Instinctively, he draws his sword to cut down the robot, but through thickets sees familiar amber eyes and strands of bittersweet hair. And he realizes that technology is a grand thing that he can't comprehend sometimes but he knows it's given him a second chance.

It's into the not-so-distant future, and Yamamoto vows to make everything right this time.


End file.
